ABSTRACT
THIS book reports on research into the growth of social relationships in the new Rural District Council housing estate of Berinsfield. Berinsfield was built partly to house families on Bullingdon R.D.C.'s waiting list, and partly to clear Field Farm, a hutted camp which had become a slum. Berinsfield and Field Farm will be described in detail in Chapter Two. This first chapter makes a general examination of local authority housing policy, as a prelude to our study of the new estate of Berinsfield. It places the research in context, by showing the local authority's policy as one of the two main constraints upon estate families' behaviour. The other principal constraint, membership of the working class, will be discussed in later chapters in so far as reliable data are available. Local authority policy imposes considerable limitations on tenants' freedom of action, and therefore upon the types of social relationship which develop on housing estates. As there is little systematic information on tenants' attitudes to the local authority, we shall be mainly concerned here with the attitudes and actions of the local authority itself.
